As I continue on my course in Instructional Design and Technology,
I have begun this week to explore the brain; the brain
and learning, information processing theory, and problem-solving methods during
the learning process. It’s been
interesting learning how my brain works...exploring what research shows about
how exactly my brain processes information.
I was particularly interested in memory and the three processes
involved: encoding information, storing
information and retrieving information.
As a classroom teacher and as someone who has a very poor memory myself,
I was interested in finding ways to improve the storage into my short term
memory (STM) and long term memory (LTM) and have looked for advice and
practices that I can use myself and in my classroom with my students. One of the most effective ways is to make some
sort of association and/or connection with the information. Ormrod, Schunk,
& Gredler (2009) tell us that “it is important that information be presented
in such a way that students can relate the new information to known information
(meaningfulness) and that they understand uses for the knowledge” (p. 96). Check out the sites listed below for some
more information on the memory process and advice on how to improve memory.
The website Intelligence Daily is a great website to visit for
information on memory. A simple visual
and written explanation is found on http://inteldaily.com/2012/01/how-memory-works-infographic/. Here you can find how your memory works,
foods recommended to help improve memory and great skills to practice using
your surroundings on how to improve memory lapses, such as visualising and
association and chunking. Another great
read for me on this site was the post ‘Can Coffee Keep Your Mind Sharp?’ It refers
to a study posted in the European
Journal of Clinical Nutrition in August, 2006 that tracked coffee drinkers in
Europe over 10 years and “found that the coffee drinkers there had lower rates
of age-related cognitive decline than men who didn’t drink coffee” http://inteldaily.com/2011/10/can-coffee-keep-your-mind-sharp/. Although it warns of drinking moderately
depending on possible side-effects that you may encounter...I personally love
the excuse to drink lots of coffee!
To help my poor memory (pardon the
pun!) I went exploring to see if there were any practices that I could be doing
to improve it. My first thoughts before research were fish oil and puzzles. I found this blog which had many great ideas
all on one list. It has the expected
advice of getting enough sleep, exercising / meditating and certain foods to
try. It also has useful ideas like
writing down information down, using mind maps, and keeping work and home
environments organised. Funnily enough,
I have recently made an effort to become much more organised and it has helped.
Check it out!
